As Crawford Memorial Hospital's fiscal year draws to a close, finances again were a prime topic of discussion at Wednesday's CMH board meeting.

The annual capital and operations budgets were adopted, as was the annual appropriations ordinance.

The capital budget, which covers planned purchases, totaled about $3.72 million, although Chief Executive Officer Doug Florkowski said the hospital will likely spend much less than that.

Board members also approved the $1 million operations budget and appropriations set at $51 million.

Florkowski praised the budget work of Interim Chief Financial Officer Cindy Bock, whose time at CMH is drawing to a close. "She knocked it out of the park," he said.

Bock has been filling in for several months while the search for a new permanent CFO was underway. The board was introduced to that new CFO Wednesday. Al White, who has worked as a CFO since 1985, will take over the job after working with Bock during a transition period.

"It's great to be here," White said. "It seems like you have a lot going on. The community is very fortunate to have this hospital and I'm glad to be a part of it."

White arrives as CMH continues to recover from a drop in patient revenues and volumes sparked by the major upgrade in how it handles electronic medical records in January.

CMH posted a $189,285 loss in March, Bock said. In-patient revenues and volumes were at expected levels, but out-patient figures, as well as revenues from home health and the hospital's rural health clinics, were below budget.

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"We knew this was going to happen," Florkowski said. To allow for the change to the new Cerner EMR system, fewer procedures were scheduled.

"Fewer patients means less money," he said. "But we anticipate this will only get better."

In other business, the newest board member was introduced. Penny Shaw was recently appointed to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Jim Kincaid. Kincaid, who had been on the board 30 years, was made a "board member emeritus."

Board members also heard a report on compliance from a pair of consultants from Quorum. They discussed the importance of compliance, risk areas to avoid and how to be compliant effectively.

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